


Bread Crumbs

by missmichellebelle



Series: Tropetember [14]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Child Servitude, Childhood Friends, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kitchen Boy Mickey, M/M, Prince Ian, Princes & Princesses, Royalty, Servants, servitude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You could get in a lot of trouble for this,” the prince advises, and Mickey shrugs.</p><p>“I won’t tell if you won’t.” He strolls forward and picks up a half loaf of bread, breaking off a piece and then holding the rest out to the prince.</p><p>He stares at it like he’s never fucking seen bread before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bread Crumbs

**Author's Note:**

> **Tropetember** is a month long event where the goal is to write a fic fulfilling a different trope/AU every day (except for one random day a week where I don't feel like it apparently). If there is a specific trope/AU you would like to see, please [drop me an ask on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> I worked a full day today and STILL managed to post fic, that is a good sign, people.
> 
> So this is one of those weird royalty fics that takes place in some nameless kingdom in some nameless land in some nameless period, where they use words like "bed chamber" and still use lashing and whipping for punishment, but they also use language similar to our own. Idk man. Creative license or whatever.
> 
> For the purposes of this fic, Ian is 12, Mickey is 14, and Liam hasn't been born yet.
> 
> (And Frank is the worst monarch in the history of monarchs.)
> 
> This fic is also inducted into the "wow this really needs like 100k at some point I need to come back and add more" series. Way too fucking many of those.

_Shit_ , is the only word flashing through Mickey’s mind as he jerks awake to the sound of the heavy kitchen door shutting. He normally doesn’t sleep in the kitchen, but someone has been stealing food and Mickey knows he’ll be the one to take the blame as soon as anyone important finds out. After all, he’s the misfit, the outcast, the charity case. It’s easy to make everything his fault.

There’s the shuffling sound of feet over the stone flooring, and Mickey rolls carefully and quietly off the cot he’d been sleeping on. There’s an iron poker resting against the hearth by his feet, and he picks it up and moves cautiously across the kitchen towards the pantry shelves, where the thief is now ruffling through things. Mickey’s always been stealthy—has had to be. No mother, and a father who didn’t make a living. Before he’d been sold, he’d supported himself (and his siblings) with thievery. Being quick and light on his feet, being quiet, being able to move within shadows. Those were important traits for a thief.

He’s nearly on them now, and Mickey raises up the heavy rod and prepares to strike the intruder, but the stranger must be aware of him somehow, because they turn and look at Mickey before he can start to swing.

“Wait!” His voice, the thief’s, is too loud in the silence of the dark kitchen, but it’s also immediately recognizable, as if his face wouldn’t be.

Mickey stumbles back a few steps, the poker falling to the ground with a resounding clang that makes him wince, and then he’s immediately falling to his knees. Because the thief that’s been stealing from the stores is none other than one of the boy princes, and Mickey had been about to _hit_ him.

“Oh, um, you really don’t have to do that—please stand up,” the prince urges, sounding uncomfortable, but it’s an order, and Mickey is a servant. He stands up, but keeps his eyes lowered, muscles tense with the anticipation of punishment. He deserves lashes, at least. If he’s lucky, maybe not too many.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been punished, but it would be the first time any of the royal family had sentenced the punishment themselves.

“I’m sorry,” is what the prince says, and Mickey can’t stop the knee-jerk reaction to look up and gape. No one has apologized to him in the two years since he came to the palace—fuck, no one really apologized to him _before_ that. Maybe a younger Mickey had sort of expected people in the palace to be more polite, and had taken offense when they hadn’t been. He’d been hostile and angry and insubordinate many times in his first few months here, but that disappeared into submission and reluctant compliance after numerous painful punishments.

People don’t apologize to servants—not even _other_ servants. So royalty, especially.

And yet here is a prince doing just that, and kind of screwing everything Mickey thought he knew into the ground.

Now that he’s looking for longer than a few seconds (and he shouldn’t be looking, should drop his eyes as he was taught until he is ordered otherwise), Mickey thinks that maybe this is the middle prince—is pretty sure, actually, because he thinks that one is the redhead. Maybe. Mickey isn’t really a go-to for knowledge on the royal family. Even when he’d just been a subject outside the palace walls, he’d never cared much for royal affairs. He was a poor urchin, and as far as he was concerned, his siblings were starving and that was far more important than whenever the princes and princesses were paraded around the city like it was some sort of _treat_ to see them.

That hasn’t changed much, if at all, since being sold to the palace. In fact, in all the time he’s been there, he’s never even seen one of them face-to-face. There’s been a few times he’s seen them at a very far distance, but he’s honestly more familiar with the oil painting renditions of the royal family in the main hall (the one he is never, under any circumstances, to go into and yet still has several times—punishment apparently can’t beat every rebellious urge out of his body) than with the royals themselves.

Not that the prince looks particularly regal right now. He’s dressed in a very large night-shirt and pants, not all that different from the ones Mickey’s wearing himself—higher quality, nicer fabric, but still the same, muted colors.

“I know I’m not supposed to be in here,” the prince continues, ringing his hands, and Mickey wants to laugh. As if there’s anywhere in the palace that the royal family _isn’t_ allowed. “And that I’m _really_ not supposed to be stealing food, that it kind of defeats the purpose of my punishment, I’m just so _hungry_ and—“

“Punishment?” Mickey asks before he can stop himself, eyebrows skewing up in confusion. He didn’t know the princes ever _were_ punished. Sure, the king is _kind of_ a dick, but still.

They’re princes.

The prince seems surprised at being interrupted, and Mickey chews on his lip ( _here it comes, the punishment_ ), and then the prince looks immediately guilty.

“The king took away my meals,” he explains. “Again,” he tacks on after a pause, and Mickey feels honestly perplexed. It’s not a beating, or a lashing, or anything that would have physical, visible ramifications.

Mickey wonders what the people would think if they knew the king was starving one of his own sons.

He chews his lip again, this time more thoughtfully than nervously, and glances around.

“Follow me,” he finally says, with a jerk of his head, and starts to walk away from the pantry shelves. There’s only a few seconds of hesitation before the prince follows behind him. Mickey leads the way down the back stairs to the cellar, which is considerably colder than the kitchen above, and is also where they temporarily store the uneaten food from the meals of the day. “We keep it here until the morning when most of it spoils, anyway. Then they chuck it.” Mickey shrugs. “But if you eat it, nobody will notice that it’s fucking missing.”

(And Mickey won’t be punished for stealing food that he’s _not stealing_.)

The prince stares in shock—Mickey wonders if he’s realizing how much good food his family wastes when there are people starving within the city walls—but then he turns the shock on Mickey.

“You could get in a lot of trouble for this,” the prince advises, and Mickey shrugs.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.” He strolls forward and picks up a half loaf of bread, breaking off a piece and then holding the rest out to the prince.

He stares at it like he’s never fucking seen bread before.

“…you’re the boy who’s father sold him to us a few years ago, right?” The prince asks, and Mickey’s face pinches, surprised and defensive.

“Yeah, so?” He looks away, the shame of what happened still enough to make the back of his neck hot.

“That must have been hard.” The prince finally reaches forward and plucks the bread out of Mickey’s still out-stretched hand. Mickey shrugs, faking all the nonchalance he can’t seem to muster right in that moment.

“Yeah, I’m sure as a prince, you get where I’m coming from completely,” Mickey spits venomously. He really shouldn’t. If he was overheard speaking to the prince like this, if anyone found _out_ …

But the way he sees it is that now the prince owes him, at least a little. Him reporting Mickey would be just as detrimental to himself. As long as he leaves before dawn, there’s no danger of them being overheard—the only person who sleeps in the kitchen is Mickey.

“And I’m sure, as a servant, you think being a prince is _easy_.”

Mickey isn’t expecting the prince to sneer back at him.

“It _is_ easy. You wouldn’t last a day doing all the shit your servants do to _make_ your life as easy as it is. You don’t know how good you fucking got it,” Mickey replies heatedly, and the prince looks away, eyes downcast, crossing an arm over his body like he’s trying to shield himself. From what, Mickey doesn’t know.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” the prince mumbles, and then takes a bite out of the bread. Mickey just rolls his eyes, scuffs his heel against the stone floor. He has a mouthful of his own bread when the prince asks, “What’s your name?”

“What’s it fucking matter?” Mickey shoots him an annoyed look—he doesn’t even bother to swallow before speaking, just talks through his mouthful of bread. It’s not like the prince is going to remember it, or remember him. Mickey is one of hundreds of servants in the palace. He’d be surprised if the prince could name more than a handful.

“Please just tell me.”

It could so easily be an order. He could so easily play the “prince” card, but he doesn’t, and Mickey kind of respects him for that. He sort of always expected the royal family to be a bunch of snobby, entitled, spoiled brats.

“…it’s Mickey,” he finally says, and the prince smiles at him, all teeth and dimples. His face is covered in freckles. If one of the princesses wasn’t a redhead also, Mickey would seriously question the prince’s legitimacy—he looks so little like his other siblings.

Mickey still has no idea what his name is—doesn’t know any of their names. It’s not important. Should he ever encounter one of them, he would bow and say, “your majesty,” and that would be that. He rubs the corner of his mouth and feels awkward.

“…look, I realize this is kind of fucked up, but… I don’t know which one you are.” Mickey glances at the prince, and he blinks curiously. “Which prince.” It’s easier than saying that he doesn’t know who _any_ of them are.

The prince looks taken-aback by this statement, and Mickey wonders if he’s going to be insulted. But he looks at Mickey with the same humbled awe that he’d had when Mickey had held out the bread.

“Ian,” the prince replies. Prince Ian. The name does ring a few bells.

“Well, _Prince Ian_ , you should probably get back to your chambers before one of your hand maidens notices you’re missing.”

Ian glares.

“I don’t _have_ hand maidens,” he retorts with a pout, and then glances away. “…I have valets.” Mickey would laugh, if he wasn’t sure the sound would wake up the rest of the kitchen staff. “And just Ian, is fine.”

Mickey over-elaborates a bow. “Whatever you say, _your majesty_.”

He doesn’t expect to have the end of Ian’s bread chucked right at his face.

“Shut it, kitchen boy.”

*

Ian’s punishment lasts two full weeks, and he comes to the kitchens every night. It comes to the point where Mickey expects him, and only feigns sleep so that the others won’t be suspicious. He starts to set certain foods aside, hiding them under the less-appealing faire—foods that Ian mentions are his favorites, or that he especially misses eating, but Mickey just stoutly denies it when Ian says anything.

Even when Ian’s punishment is lifted, he continues to come and visit Mickey, even though Mickey tells him time and time again to _stop_ , because he does want to get a decent night’s sleep at some point. But Ian ignores him, and Mickey finds himself feeling glad for it (even though he would never, _ever_ admit it to anyone).

(Ever).

On those nights, they sit side-by-side and eat leftover desserts, and mostly Ian just talks. He talks a lot, about everything and nothing. Says more than Mickey would ever care to hear, but he listens anyway. Ian tells him about astronomy, about how awful his math tutor is, about the books he likes to read in the library. And Mickey teaches Ian how to peel an apple, tells him about how they fold and fold and fold the croissant dough, describes the way bread dough feels between your fingers.

At one point, he even promises to show Ian how to make bread one day.

It’s a promise that both of them know will probably never happen.

Somehow, despite all of his reluctance and fronted-rebuffs and _seriously fuck off_ s, Ian worms his way into Mickey’s simple life of servitude and stays there. Mickey doesn’t understand why _him_ , when Ian could literally ask to have someone to talk to and would be provided with one. One who would probably be better company than Mickey, who could actually cold hold a conversation and wouldn't piss the prince off nearly as much (but wouldn't make him laugh as much, either). But apparently giving Ian a loaf of bread has made him permanently attached to Mickey's side. Well, that and...

Mickey thinks that maybe Ian sticks around because, as much as they joke about their relative statuses, it doesn’t seem to really matter to them.

Ian might be a prince, and Mickey might be a kitchen boy, but when it’s the middle of the night and Mickey has Ian laughing into his elbow, they’re just Ian and Mickey. Just two boys navigating the unlikeliest of friendships.

**Author's Note:**

> [Read, Reblog, & Like on Tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/98207868635/bread-crumbs)


End file.
